


Survivor's Guilt

by thunder_rolled_a_six



Category: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Dick being very very sad after Damian dies, Emetophobia, Gen, Grief, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 20:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_rolled_a_six/pseuds/thunder_rolled_a_six
Summary: So, in hotel rooms and airplanes and car chases and fist fights, Dick scrapes what’s left of himself together, tries to reassemble the pieces.





	Survivor's Guilt

Dick Grayson is familiar with the term “survivor’s guilt.” When his parents died, when his life - for the first time - was torn apart, he wondered why he had not been consumed by that tragedy too. Why had only he been left, what right did he have to live?

It became less definable, less text book definition after that. When Jason died, the guilt-grief was not “You are alive and he is not.” It was “He is dead and you did nothing to stop it.” He should have helped Jason more, he should have been there, he should have stayed Robin if only so no one else would have to do it. Dick sees Red Hood wreaking havoc on tv, sees the anger in Jason’s stance-movements-soul, and his heart beats guilt guilt guilt.

They all failed Stephanie. She should never have gone through what she did, someone should have been paying attention, Bruce didn’t, but that’s why Dick got away from him, falsely believing he was any better with people than his father figure. Stephanie shines brightly as she ever did in spite of it all, but sometimes he looks into her eyes and it’s like looking over a cliff so high it gives even him, the boy who sheds gravity, vertigo.

And now this. Dick Grayson goes down in a fight against Heretic. 

But he doesn’t think much of it, hurling through the air and bracing for impact. Damian is so strong, and Bruce will find his way out of whatever trap he’s been thrown in, Tim is in the building somewhere, every thing will be fine. Then Dick wakes up and sees-

The little bird, the smallest Robin, torn from the sky and it doesn’t make sense. He’s so  _ small _ , face covered by his cape in a hasty shroud, he wasn’t that small, was he? This can’t be real, it’s too wrong, Damian should be mocking him for sleeping through the fight, not laying there with arrows sticking out of him and an absolutely ruined chest, it doesn’t make sense, Dick can’t make it make sense, he can’t  _ think _ \- then the building’s going to come down on top of them if they don’t move and he picks up  _ his _ Robin, his baby brother, and the body is still warm and-

Later, Dick’s memories of the next hours and days will run into each other, have missing spots. Time passes in fits and starts. There’s just horror-grief-revulsion-guilt and he feels like he’s bursting, pulling apart at the seams. Damian, proud Damian, who was so good, who was going to grow to be one of the best of them, is in the ground and it’s like falling, it’s like missing the bar you’ve caught hundreds of times, it’s an acrobat plummeting through the air, and it’s all too much- it’s all-

Dick Grayson is going to throw up.

He does, a few times, on his knees in his tiny safe house bathroom and he can’t remember how he got there but can see with perfect clarity a crack in the back of the toilet seat and it’s the only thing he can process because there’s a roaring in his ears that’s not quite loud enough to drown out “We were the best, Richard...” and his vision is filling up with that too small body, and everything is tilting and it’s all wrong, wrong wrong wrong _ wrongwro _ \- 

Dick Grayson passes out on the cold tile.

When he is “killed,” when he has the opportunity to bolt disguised as something important and necessary, he takes it. He lets his family think they’ve lost someone else because he can’t breathe in this city so weighed down with memory, it’s like Damian took his lungs to the grave with him. It’s selfish, it’s the furthest thing from bravery, it’s sneaky and dirty and Dick Grayson hates himself for it, most days, but he gets distance from his unspeakable failure (“We were the best, Richard. No matter what anyone thinks.”), he does good in the world and no one knows him and so no one can remind him of what he lost, of what he left behind.

It can’t be like this forever. For one, Damian wouldn't stand for it, would call him weak for this gutlessness, would be annoyed at how rapidly he fell apart. So, in hotel rooms and airplanes and car chases and fist fights, Dick scrapes what’s left of himself together, tries to reassemble the pieces.

Legs, for walking, running, flying. Arms, for holding, lifting, fighting. Head, to think, to remember. His coward’s heart, sick with guilt and grief, to hurt, to hurt, to heal. 

He can’t stay away from Gotham forever, the city is in his veins and bone marrow and lungs and brain, a cancer. It will be terminal, eventually. Not today, though, because here, on one of thousands of familiar rooftops, impossibly, is Damian. The little bird, risen again, vaulting towards him with a disbelieving smile on his face, and Dick Grayson’s battered lungs finally stutter back to life. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm every so often haunted by the fact that Damian was murdered protecting his brother when he was so so young, wrote this thinking about how Dick deals with that.


End file.
